Thirty letters in my name

I will most likely be unable for post for the next ten days. That's because it is time to travel again, talk to people, and see new plac...

Lera Boroditsky thinks so . And she presents a fascinating example: Follow me to Pormpuraaw, a small Aboriginal community on the western ed...

(Spoilers ahead for those who haven't read.) What if sudden misfortune strikes someone in a family? What if the misfortune is of the kin...

Other posts on my Mexico trip: Traveling to Mexico City , A whirlwind summary of Mexico , Ganesha in Mayan country , Karina's world , Ar...

Apologies for the sluggishness this month. I got busy with a grant application to a federal agency under the National Institutes of Health (...

Details here and here . Photo credit: Ritesh Uttamchandani.

In June 2007, I saw a preview of Dinner With The President , a documentary about democracy in Pakistan. I’ve been looking for the movie ever...

King Leopold II of Belgium owned the Congo in the late 1800s; it was called the Congo Free State . He treated it like his personal property...

How did the Pakistani Taliban reorganize itself? How duplicitous is the Pakistani Army's role? How are the United States and the CIA inv...

The young man in the above picture is from Chiapas , Mexico's southernmost state; he is the operator of a motor boat that takes tourists...

At Quabbin Reservoir in Western Massachusetts, not far from Amherst, where I live. Yes, I know, the white tail isn't visible - but what...

I am looking forward to reading Empires of the Indus . Alice Albinia , the author, tells us the story of the Indus River by revealing the la...

With so much interconnectedness and the ease with which information and goods flow, you would have expected the world today to be more dispe...

Serious travel is about meeting people. Whether it is the town just around the corner from where you live or some remote part of the world, ...

(Picture of roadside book stall in Mexico City, taken during my trip last December.) Among magazines for the lascivious eye -- with pictures...

I referred briefly here to the sense of humor of the Ogallala Indians of Pine Ridge reservation , South Dakota. But it wasn’t always a ple...

I . Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota In August 2007, I drove from Minnesota to the western end of South Dakota, to the Pine Ridge reserv...

From Suketu Mehta's Maximum City:Bombay Lost and Found : Shiv Sena 's notions of what is culturally acceptable in India show a dist...

Queues of all sorts fascinate me, and in this season of elections, it is only understandable that they are rampant at polling places. India...

For those who may not know, this is batting maestro Brian Lara teaching the President how to hit a good front-foot cover drive. But from th...

A Spanish evangelist, Fray Domingo de Santo Tomas , traveling in Peru circa 1560 finds out what being Christian means to the Indians of Per...

Great piece here on how certain parties in both rich and poor countries have strong incentives to proliferate weapons in the global market,...

History’s biggest insights lie in understanding contrasts. Why did things turn out a certain way in one part of the world and so differently...

Close on the heels of my post about the logistical complexity and scale of the India's upcoming general election, comes this short one ...

India holds its general elections this month. This is, on paper at least, the largest exercise of democracy in the world. However bizarre d...

“Kidneys are unusual organs,” says the blogger and academic Michael Trick , “We are given two, though we can get by with one. So, unlike th...

Basharat Peer’s memoir, Curfewed Night , is about Kashmir’s woes, but there are plenty of other interesting bits in the book that have nothi...